


you were the miracle

by andorgyny



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, F/F, F/M, Ghosts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-06
Updated: 2014-08-06
Packaged: 2018-02-12 00:09:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2088186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andorgyny/pseuds/andorgyny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At first glimpse, Dr. John Smith believes he has bought a house haunted by a ghost. Of course, the truth is much stranger than that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The first time I caught a glimpse of her, I was alone and therefore no one can possibly corroborate my story. It will sound completely mad, but she was there and I was awakened, for the first time, to the true magic of the universe. I saw, with my own eyes, the beauty of the world, the cruelty of it. For this was a woman, a specter though she might have been. Yes, a ghost, dear reader.

I had just bought it from a ghastly woman named Jacqueline, for it served my purpose quite well. Small though it may have been, it was in London and close to my office. But most importantly, it was dark and quiet and absolutely what I had been looking for. The neighbors would leave me alone, I was assured.

I had sent my housekeeper Oswald to bed for the night and had been sitting in the living room, reading Dickens, when I felt the air turn cold. The flames in my fireplace flickered and burned out. I saw my breath, cold as it was, and frowned. It had been a horrible spring but it was spring nonetheless. I heard clumsy fingers on my piano. 

If I could have turned around, I would have. But in my living room, playing my piano, was some sort of creature, and I must admit I was too frightened to look. Cold sweat broke out on my forehead. My breathing quickened. And then, the music stopped. 

I still felt her presence. Light taps on the floor. Shoes, I thought. What would a ghost need of shoes?

My hair stood up on my neck. My heart raced. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the swishing of some white fabric. 

I shut my eyes against her. And then, she was gone.

The fire returned, like it had never been put out by some ghoulish creature. The air was hot, suddenly too hot.

I could have imagined it all, and I think I would have believed that to have been the case, were it not for the writing, in bold red letters, on the wall.

FIND TH—

That certainly had not been there before. And though my heart was pounding in my chest, though I felt as though I were in desperate need of a shrink or at least a nice port, I found myself to be the slightest bit curious.

I did not sleep that night, and the next day, I met Martha Jones.

//

She was a black woman of independent means, a nurse by trade but also a ghost-hunting hobbyist with her partner, Amelia Pond. Now I knew the good Lady Amelia Pond to be the daughter of a Scottish earl, but I also new that her relationship with Miss Jones was one that had scandalized London society for weeks. I myself found their partnership vaguely unsettling, even though I consider myself a liberal. 

Still, if they were aware of my discomfort, they made no effort to be sensitive about it in front of me. And perhaps that helped me in some way to better understand them.

"So you have a ghost in your house, Dr. Smith." Miss Pond was quite to-the-point, in the way that my dearly departed sister, Donna, had always been. I immediately liked her. "And you have come to us to rid yourself of it."

"I cannot work in peace if there is a creature in my rooms."

Miss Jones sat back in her seat, eyeing me cautiously. “You did not say if she was at all malevolent.”

I started. “How did you know that the apparition was a woman?”

She gave me something of a smile. “Because, dear Dr. Smith, you live at 119 Powell Street, and that is where Rose Tyler lived before she disappeared.”

"Who?" Even as I asked, I remembered the article. I’d kept it for weeks. Rose Tyler, the woman from Henrick’s. The girl with the amber eyes, with the lips that looked so sweet, the cheeks so ripe. She’d served me tea as I had written my first and only novel. 

And then I realized a number of things:

One, Jacqueline’s last name had been Tyler. Two, she’d neglected to tell me that I would be haunted by her dead child. And three, Henrick’s had burned down two years before. 

"Dr. Smith, catch as much sleep as you can today. Tonight, we will search for this ghost of yours."

//

I slept a little when I returned home, but an awful scratching against my bedroom window kept me from falling into a deep sleep. A tree branch, of course. Not the work of the supernatural.

When at last Miss Jones and Miss Pond arrived at my abode, they had with them a heaping pile of books and papers and things. “I thought we were going ghost hunting,” I said.

"We are," Miss Pond replied. "But first, we must know what we are dealing with. Rose Tyler was, by all accounts, near a saint in life; it is unlikely that she would turn malevolent in death."

"In other words, something must have triggered this haunting," Miss Jones continued. "Happy spirits generally do not remain on this world. Every spirit I have dealt with has had some legitimate grievance or another. They are not cruel, not usually at least, and they do not haunt for the fun of it. They are trapped, Dr. Smith, and it is our duty to set them free."

"So we study," I said.

Miss Jones smiled. “So we study.”

//

Jacqueline Tyler reluctantly gave up what little she had of her daughter when pushed a bit. I was understandably frustrated that she did not tell me of the haunting before I purchased 119 Powell Street.

"Oh, like you’d believe me," she near shouted, in tears. "A crazed old widow with a dead child. No, I wanted to take this to the grave."

"There are people who believe in these things," Miss Pond said kindly.

Mrs. Tyler scowled. “People like you, who have exorbitant fees, or so I hear.”

I blushed. Of course, I was far wealthier than Mrs. Tyler—one look at her drab accommodations told me everything I needed to know about her fiscal situation. It was a dark place; the curtains matched her mourning attire. I wondered when she had lost her husband. I wondered how a person could deal with losing their whole family.

Oh, I still had mine, even if they were in the country and not speaking with me. But they still lived on in the village of Gallifrey, bickering about propriety and my ineptitude as the heir of their little kingdom. 

"She spoke of you, you know," Mrs. Tyler said after a tense moment. I looked up from my tea and frowned. "Called you ‘the Doctor.’ Said you were a proper, respectable fellow. Always were so nice to her, even if she was nothing but a servant girl." 

"Miss Tyler seemed quite nice, the few times we spoke."

"She was a good girl. Would have made a good wife, had she been interested in that sort of thing."

I wondered briefly what she had been interested in, and then I sipped my tea.

//

The first night she came back was the night Martha Jones and Amelia Pond did not stay at my house. I drank my port and read what I felt was an appropriate pick (Hamlet, if only for the ghosts). 

It happened subtly. I felt my skin grow clammy. The fire burst into life from smoldering embers. There was a tapping sound on the door to the dining room. “Mrs. Oswald?” I called. 

She did not appear. 

No, I am afraid that who—or what—I saw was not my housekeeper. There, by the fireplace, she stood, or floated, or something else most frightful. The ghost of Rose Tyler. She wore her Sunday best, but it was so cold, and she had the fashionable shorter sleeves. In life, she had been as vibrant as anything I’d ever seen. In death, she was frozen; she was pale. But her eyes, her eyes were magnificent as ever. The color of honey. 

"Why are you here?" I asked, despite myself. Something flickered in her eyes. Her lips quirked. She held out a pasty hand and pointed at the wall. I turned quickly, just to see if she had written something else. But no, the wallpaper was blank again. "Are you trapped, like Miss Jones says?"

She turned and began to pace. Actually pace! A ghost, in my company, pacing in my sitting room. It was remarkable, and I almost wanted to take notes. She would have made a fascinating subject.

But the air grew colder. I felt something pass between us as she stopped and looked at me with those large eyes of hers.

Yes, she said. Or rather, I heard her words in my head. I am trapped.

"How did you die?" I asked, simply because no one knew. A body was never found.

The air heated quite quickly. I looked at her, and then I was seeing nothing, and then I was in my bed, wrapped in blankets and sheets. Beside me was a book.

A journal. The title was odd enough—A Journal of Impossible Things. It was blank on the inside, save for the first page. 

THIS IS THE STORY OF HOW I DIED.

And then the words… well, what they did, I’ll never know how to describe fully. They simply… came to be. They blossomed into existence. 

The truth was, as it usually is, stranger than fiction.


	2. Chapter 2

_When I was seven, I found a book in my house that I had never seen before. A blue book. It had words in Latin, I think, and some other languages, but I wasn’t educated the way a proper girl would have been, so I just sounded the words out and hoped for the best._

_A woman appeared to me the following day. She was beautiful, all curly hair and elegant hands, and she kissed me on my cheeks and told me I was the chosen one. She sounded like a lady, so I let her in. My mother was working. And I was taught to respect my betters._

_"Rose Tyler," she told me. "I am here to warn you. You have called me to you, and since you are but a child, I will let this slide just the once. I am Death. I bring heaven and hell to earth. Those words you have spoken, they are forbidden. They are an incantation. Magic."_

_I was stunned. Magic was still a wondrous thing to me, as a child, but Death told me to fear it. She told me to never again speak those words, to bury that blue book in the yard. So I did._

_But I was a curious child, and an even more curious young woman. And when my father died, I thought about that book. I thought, maybe Death was right—magic can be evil and destructive. But could it not also bring good and righteousness unto earth?_

_I saw my mother, grief-stricken as she was, and I knew I had to take that risk. I dug up the book, picked a passage at random, and prayed to God that it would work._

_I should have left it well alone. Death returned, older and quieter, but enraged. She grabbed the book from my hands and slapped me across the face. “Foolish girl!” she barked. “You have committed the most grievous sin!”_

_I did not understand, you see. My father had been an inventor, but not a particularly successful one. What harm could come from bringing him back?_

_But Death was furious. And I paid the price for my sin._

_I have been locked away in a neverworld for so long, it feels like years. It might have been days, or hours, for all I know. This is the place that presses onto your plane, the place that is darkness and ghoulish and everything cruel._

_I just walk. I’ve walked so far, my dress is ruined. I will never get another here. That seems petty, does it not? I will never have anything here. Not the touch of a hand, not a smile on my lips. It hurts to breathe._

_Please. I see you sometimes when you are alone. Find me and bring me home. The women with whom you work to relieve yourself of my haunting are tricksters. They cannot help you. The dead do not haunt the living. The dead stay dead. The living haunt the living because they are trapped in the void, because Death is vengeful and calculating._

_I think you must be lonely, in my old house._

_Find the book, the blue book, and bring me home, Dr. Smith._

 

I stared at the pages as the neat handwriting blurred before my eyes. It disappeared, like some parlor trick. But I knew without a doubt that this was no trick. Rose Tyler needed me.

I thought back to the days of my glory, when Romana would look upon me with sisterly pride, when Harry would introduce me to his Tory friends. When the words came easily. 

This was my mission, I decided. To save a good woman from a curse. A woman who had always given me extra milk for my tea, even though she could have been sacked.

But I did not know where to start. How would I find a book that had been taken by a witch? 

I realized, with a start, that it had gotten cold again. I wrapped myself in my covers and stared at my breath. 

I looked down at the book again.

She has the power to set fire to buildings and banish folk to hell. Be safe. Don’t let her see you.

Well, first, I had to go to Miss Jones.

When I reached her office, I was welcomed by Miss Pond most fervently. “We were worried when you did not call on us last night as you said you would,” she said. “Especially since you normally are so conscientious.”

But I was not listening. A woman I did not know had walked into the room, her wild blond curls set loose around her face. In her neatly manicured hands was a book. A blue book.

That had been easier that I had ever expected.

"Oh, I see you have a visitor, cousin," the woman remarked, her stark blue eyes locked on mine. I was immediately unnerved.

She held out her hand. “Professor River Song,” she said as I shook it.

"Dr. John Smith," I replied faintly.

Miss Pond smiled. “Professor Song is the first woman to teach at Oxford, Dr. Smith. She is also my cousin, and quite familiar with ghosts herself.”

"I hear you are living at 119 Powell Street," Professor Song said. I shot a look at Miss Pond, who had the good grace to appear chagrined. "Oh, do not worry, Dr. Smith. I shall not step on your toes; I have no interest in chasing ghosts today. I was just on my way to the library, you see."

"Ah," I said. "What are you reading?" I looked pointedly at the book in her hand.

"Oh, a bit of this and a bit of that. Archaeology, mainly. Love a tomb," she added, something flickering in her eyes. "Anyway, I must be going. My students get ever so cross when I’m late."

She kissed Miss Pond on the cheek and left in a rush, but not before placing her blue book on the table in the foyer.

Oh, I had found Death, alright. But really, what I didn’t know was that Death had found me.

"Are you alright, Dr. Smith?" Miss Pond’s voice cut through my thoughts. "You look as though you’ve seen a ghost." She laughed. "If you have, I am awfully jealous."

 

While Miss Pond was tending to Miss Jones, who was bedridden with fever, I looked at the book. It had no title, which meant it could have been a journal, but what I saw inside was absolutely the most incredible thing I had ever seen.

I slipped it into my pocket, hoping Death would not notice before I had brought Rose Tyler back to safety. 

Miss Pond returned after several minutes. Miss Jones apologized for not being well enough to appear herself and if I could return on the next business day, that would be lovely. Since I was in a hurry to return to 119 Powell Street, I made a show of relenting, all the while relieved (especially since I had come to dismiss the women, and that was never a particularly pleasant task).

I hurried to my house, but it was still after dark when I finally unlocked the door.

I took the book from my pocket and opened it to the first page. Ah, an index. Given that I had no idea what I was searching for, I figured it might help.

PART ONE: INCANTATIONS FOR THE LIVING 

PART TWO: INCANTATIONS FOR THE DEAD 

PART THREE: TRAVERSING THE VOID

PART FOUR: RULES AND REGULATIONS AS RELATING TO…

There were fifteen parts in all, but my eyes fell on the third. Something Rose had written to me, something important. I wondered if I could just converse with her again.

I raced up the stairs to my room, where I had left the journal, but someone had beaten me to it.

Her hands were indeed elegant, though they clutched the journal that I desperately needed. Even in the dark, I could see she was smiling something terrible. 

"Looking for this, Dr. Smith?" she said. Somehow her voice was more than it had been, louder or simply ethereal. "Lucky for me that my dazzling cousin Amelia has no sense of confidentiality. Had I tried to get Martha Jones to speak, well… it would have taken more than words."

I thought of Miss Jones, sick in her bed, and paled. “What did you do to her?”

She turned toward the window. A branch scratched against the glass. “A hasty performance, I’m afraid. Martha is aware of my troubles, and I could not have her interfering. It is unpleasant for her, I imagine, but it will pass. The fever will break.”

Miss Jones knew? I thought of Rose Tyler’s words. They cannot help you. Had they alerted Death to my inquiries?

I looked at Death again, and Death looked at me. “I suppose she told you everything,” she said. “At least, everything she knew. No doubt she told you to fear me. That I am a monster or the devil or something horrible.” Her voice faded a bit to something… almost tired. Resigned.

"She said you cursed her."

"I did." Death frowned. "She was hopelessly curious, even as a child. I knew there was no hope. But I tried to warn her. There are rules.

"Did she tell you what she tried to do?" I looked at the journal and shook my head, even though I knew, I just knew what she had attempted. “She brought her father back from the dead. Dug him up from the ground and everything. It worked, for a time. But he was never quite right, because she did not know what she was doing! And he suffered for months before he fell again. But she never saw it, because I had to exact my punishment.”

I felt like crying. I knew I had failed her. Rose Tyler. She would be stuck forever in her neverworld, for trying something any human would. For Donna, I would have done it. 

"She was tempted. Why was the book there in the first place?" I asked.

Death sighed. “Her grandmother was my guardian. She taught me everything I knew. I am Rose Tyler’s aunt.”

"You cursed your own niece. For human nature."

"I know," she said. "I know." 

 

In the end, Death reversed the spell on her own. Rose Tyler appeared, first like her ghostly form, but then the color returned to her features, her eyes even more alive than ever. The chill disappeared. 

The older woman took both books in her hand and headed for the door. ”Why did you help me?” Rose asked her.

"Because sometimes the rules are meant to be broken," Death replied. "Not often, mind you. Which is why I am taking these and locking them away." She looked back at us and smiled. "And anyway, I need an heir. You’ll have to get busy, Rose Tyler."

I felt my cheeks heat up. Rose Tyler slipped her hand into mine.

Finally alone with the most lovely woman I had ever seen, I smiled down at her. Squeezed her hand in mine. “I know this is your home now, but I am awfully tired, and I have to plan out my course of action,” she said. “How am I going to break it to Mother?”

"You can stay here as long as you wish, Miss Tyler."

She grinned broadly, and it was so lovely, I swear I heard bells. “Please, you saved me from eternal damnation. It’s Rose.”

"Then I am John. Now, how about a cup of tea?"

 

We married mere weeks after her return. The wedding nearly didn’t happen, thanks to my ghost-hunting friends Miss Jones and Miss Pond. But that, my friend, is a story for another time.


End file.
